Romania has a very rich and complex folklore treasure. The Romanian popular dances, known for their beauty and large variety, constitute this treasure together with songs, fables, legends, and popular poetry. Although the Romanian popular dance appears in a large variety of regional aspects, it presents essential characters in common, uniting all forms of choreographic expression of the Romanian people in a specific national style.

The Romanian popular dance has always been a part of individual and community life; whenever important events occurred, song and dance played a prominent part. Such occasions are holidays, pastimes, markets, "nedeie" (a folklore festival characteristic of the zones of the Hunedoara and Banat), feasts in connection with farming or herding, ceremonies in connection with labor and earth fertility, and, naturally, important events of life: birth, engagement, marriage. Dance is never separated from music. Before being accompanied by instruments, dance was accompanied by songs and the rhythms of clapping hands or percussion.

There is a great variety of regional styles with pronounced character, conferring personality on the different folklore regions of the country. The folklore regions cannot be strictly delimited by the specific character of the dancing and style because many aspects overlap, but the local regions can be grouped geographically in larger regions corresponding to the ancient historical provinces.

These larger folklore regions are Moldavia, Basarabia, Wallachia, Oltenia, Banat, Transylvania, and Dobrodja.

This is Hora from Oltenia Region:

Other traditional dances and songs: